Density of states of colloidal glasses

Glasses are structurally liquid-like, but mechanically solid-like. Most attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine the vibrational modes of a colloidal glass experimentally, and find...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2009-10
Main Authors: Ghosh, Antina, Chikkadi, Vijayakumar K, Schall, Peter, Kurchan, Jorge, Bonn, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Solid state physics
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Glasses are structurally liquid-like, but mechanically solid-like. Most attempts to understand glasses start from liquid state theory. Here we take the opposite point of view, and use concepts from solid state physics. We determine the vibrational modes of a colloidal glass experimentally, and find soft low-frequency modes that are very different in nature from the usual acoustic vibrations of ordinary solids. These modes extend over surprisingly large length scales.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.0910.3231